


Two Scenes & an Epilogue

by mikkey_bones



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Anthropomorphism - Freefom, Historical, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-03
Updated: 2011-06-03
Packaged: 2017-10-20 02:19:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/207735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikkey_bones/pseuds/mikkey_bones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The aftermath of World War I, and impressions of the victors in the minds of the defeated.  Gilbert is resentful, Ludwig is lonely, and Francis and Arthur are wrapped up in each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Scenes & an Epilogue

_( thoughts on a negotiation )_

Francis looked like a doll made of wax, like one of those cast statues with real hair and real clothing that had become popular in the latter half of the last century.  His face was pale and bloodless, his face gaunt, and the hollows beneath his eyes dark with exhaustion.  He walked with a limp.  Arthur steadied him with a hand under his elbow.

They entered the room to a sudden and complete silence.  It had not been loud before, but there was a hushed and slightly shocked murmur as Gilbert spoke softly with Ludwig, both of them more than worse for wear, and America tried to persuade Italy and Japan of the validity of this 'League of Nations' dreamed up by his president.  And now, with Francis looking the way he did - so shattered, but his eyes were hard like blue glass and diamonds - all sound stopped.

Alfred stirred and his pen fell to the floor with a clatter that echoed in the sudden quiet.  Gilbert, whose nerves were still keyed to the sound of gunfire in the trenches, whipped his head around to glare, saw Alfred, and then turned back, his eyes fixed on the doorway where the weak and waxen doll Francis was being led inside.

Sometimes Gilbert felt (almost) guilty for the war; sometimes he remembered the days when he was allied with France and they had taken Silesia and drunk themselves half to death on bad wine.  But lately, instead of feeling some slight guilt, Gilbert felt anger.  The losers had not been let into the negotiations with the thought that they did not _deserve_ to be there.  And now he was here to learn about a treaty that would probably destroy his country and the empire he and Ludwig had worked so hard to build.

Francis did not deserve his victory; anyone with eyes could see that he was faring worse than Gilbert.  He could barely walk; moved with a stilted sort of limp, bending one knee but not the other.  Were England not acting as some kind of _cane_ Francis wouldn't be able to get around at all, Gilbert thought with disdain.  But he didn't voice his thoughts out loud, _no_ , as a defeated nation he was not allowed to do that.  He had learned that already, when he tried to be included in the treaty negotiations.

No one else voiced their thoughts either.  The only sounds were Francis and Arthur's footsteps as they crossed the room, Arthur taking small steps to compensate for Francis's limping, walking slow so the other nation would be steady.  Alfred coughed and shuffled his papers, looked at the pair and then looked down.  Gilbert, watching with narrow red eyes, was reminded that these two nations had been almost like parents to America.  What did he think, seeing them like this?

Arthur did not look nearly as bad.  He had a small bandage around his head and his fingers were bandaged too, probably where he had scraped his knuckles raw and burnt his fingers on gunpowder.  Gilbert remembered those bandages from the battlefield; they were clean now.  The arm not supporting Francis was held gingerly at his side - a hurt shoulder, Gilbert thought, or perhaps he was pressing it to a wound in his side.  He favored the latter theory; seemed so much more painful.

Gilbert was almost surprised, too, when Arthur drew out a chair for Francis (one of the two chairs at the head of the long table) first, and helped him into his seat.  His eyes widened without conscious effort when Arthur bent down and murmured something into Francis's ear, lips almost brushing his hair.  Francis's stony expression twitched - Gilbert wondered whether it would be into a smile or a frown, but then the life vanished again and whatever expression it was, was gone - and then Arthur took his seat.

Still, no one spoke.  What were they waiting for?  A leader?  A savior?  The war was over.  Gilbert felt the ever-present anger twisting and coiling in his stomach to something akin to rage.  He wanted to bang his fist on the table and tell them to _get the fuck over with it_ ; Ludwig was in pain and he was almost just a _kid_ , but he didn't.  He pressed his thin lips together and refused to speak, because if he spoke they would take more away from him than they had already.  And he didn't want that.

Arthur scooted in his chair.  The wooden legs made a harsh screeching noise against the stone tile.  He coughed.  No one spoke.

"Well, what the fuck are we all waiting for?" Arthur asked loudly after another moment of silence, and glared at the assemblage, even his allies - except, of course, for Francis.  "We're here to _talk_ ; get the bloody fuck on with it!"

 _( impressions of a meeting )_

Wandering the halls like a ghost.  Not small anymore, no.  Not weak - maybe.  Exhaustion took root in the bones.  All things crumbled and broke.  Ludwig never thought there was so much blood in the human body, never so much blood in the entire world.

Gilbert (brother) tried to understand but could not quite grasp the machinations of the empire.  Ludwig was the empire.  Gilbert was a state.  He knew his own people intimately and knew the feeling of slow decay from his own glory days.  But he did not know the true hopelessness of the _Deutsch_.

Silent steps - the treaty had been negotiated and he was no danger; he could roam free - wherever he wanted.  Wherever he thought he could escape (but of course there was nowhere).  He thought perhaps the world had narrowed to this single building, these hallways, and imagined how they would look had his army been victorious.  Strip the gold leaf and melt down the brass to make something useful, not trellises and fanciful mermaids.

And so many doors, so many small rooms like the one he was passing now, the door open a crack and hushed voices flitting through the empty space.

"... can't, _mon cher Angleterre_ , there is a difference between what we have _been_ and what we are now."

That was Francis's voice.  Ludwig recognized it from many battlefields.  He would have said Francis looked like the Angel of Death, only he never believed in angels.  But he was so thin and so ghastly sometimes Ludwig felt as if it would have been better had he died on the battlefield.  Better for them all.

"Francis, hush, Francis... shhh."

The other voice was also familiar in the way that stuck in Ludwig's throat and made him think of royal lineages and mud in the trenches.  He pressed a hand over his mouth and approached slowly, sliding one foot in front of the other until he was peering through the crack in the door.

The room was small.  In it, two chairs, facing each other; seated on them, Francis and Arthur, facing each other.  Francis's eyes were wide and Arthur's looked pained; Arthur's hand was on Francis's cheek and he was leaning forward, so close their foreheads were almost touching.

Francis hit his hand away.  A halfhearted motion.  "You do not understand, _Angleterre_."

"They're defeated.  We won," Arthur said, his tone firm and his glass green eyes hard.  He took his hand from Francis's face, placed it on Francis's knees.  "They're dead, they're gone, it's _over_."

At that Ludwig stirred; he did not think he was dead, if Arthur was talking of this war.  There were so many about which Prussia had told him.  Sometimes he forgot.

"The fields, the harvest," Francis replied.  "I have never...  It will never..."

Ludwig remembered how mustard gas would sting when it touched his skin; the way the other soldiers would cry out late at night from the pain of their burns.  He remembered water sloshing in the bottoms of the trenches and how they had dug through the farms and the fields.  It was not the German harvest.  What did it matter?

"I promise we'll make it better," Arthur said, as tender as Ludwig had ever seen him.  "We will," he coughed, "you and I... and Alfred I suppose."  He gathered Francis's hands in his own.  "I promise," he repeated.

Francis looked like a child as he watched Arthur's face, blue eyes wide and more innocent than Ludwig thought they were capable of being.  "And the nightmares?"

Arthur's expression was perhaps pained as he gathered Francis further into his arms, his touch gentle and acutely aware of the other nation's fragility.  "The nightmares will go away."

Ludwig hoped that was true.

"And the -" Francis began, but Arthur silenced him by leaning in and catching his lips for a kiss.

After a few moments, Ludwig straightened, turned, and continued down the hallway, walking slow because he hurt and there was no one to hold his hands or to hold him - Gilbert had his own pain.  Sometimes it felt like the halls would wrap around him and though he was scarred, though he was tall, though he was ignominious in his defeat, Ludwig felt safe.

 _( epilogue of a tryst )_

Parisian moonlight drifted through the window of the room to settle in silver cobweb threads along Francis's hair and nose and the curve of his wrist as he brought the cigarette to his lips and inhaled.  The smoke, upon exhalation, curled up in wisps back towards the moon.

"I know you too are hurting but it is difficult for me to... offer you comfort in the way you have been comforting me," Francis was saying, and his free hand (the bandages fresh along his wrist and his arm) picked at the blankets, mussing them and smoothing them in turns.  They had been silent before, but Francis hated the silence and had spoken after only a few minutes.

"It's," Arthur began and then stopped.  He was watching Francis in the moonlight but he himself was still in shadow.  He stretched out a hand and watched the silver pool on his fingers.  "I don't expect you to do something like that, Francis," he said, though he really had no idea what the other nation was talking about.

Inhale.  Exhale.  "I cannot sympathize with you even though I am grateful for your sympathy," Francis continued.  Arthur wished he would just _stop talking_.  He had noticed this was a common sentiment when he was with Francis.  "I..."  He seemed to gather himself in, withdraw, shutting his mouth and staring up at the sky.

Arthur waited for him to continue, but nothing was forthcoming.  He drew himself up out from under the covers (where he had been so damnably _comfortable_ until Francis had decided to get up and have a bloody smoke) to sit up behind Francis, reaching out and gently brushing fingers through the other nation's hair, drawing it back over his shoulders.  Francis did not respond to the touch aside from removing the cigarette from his mouth and beginning to speak again.

"I wish it would rain," he said, his nervous fingers still picking at the coverlet.  "I wish it would always rain.  I know that were I human, I would have died long ago, but I wish to heal as fast and as fearlessly as they.  I wish I did not know where my scars will be.  If it was raining we could go out," here, a quick, darting glance in Arthur's direction, "and dance.  In the rain.  If I could dance."

Arthur couldn't help the swift shadow of a smile.  "You're mad," he said.  Francis was always mad; had always been mad.  There were times when it was worse than others; this time, at least, the madness did not scare him.  He leaned forward to kiss the top of Francis's head.

"And the moon," Francis continued.  "Like quicksilver.  It was not like this in... At Verdun, it was not like this.  Verdun was gunsmoke, not _this_ smoke," he exhaled, "Verdun was screaming, not this quiet.  I..."  He shuddered.  "At Verdun, there was no air to breathe."

"We're not at Verdun," Arthur replied, leaning closer and brushing the hair away from the back of Francis's neck so he could kiss the top of the other nation's spine.   _Thank God_ , he added mentally and remembered how Francis was in the trenches - staying strong by sheer willpower even as his body grew weaker, carrying on like nothing was wrong with the madness of pain and fear and survival swimming in his eyes.  At least here, Francis could break when he wanted to.  At least here they were dry and they were safe.  "We will never be... in that moment again."

 Also in that moment had been Francis and Arthur's (which would come as a surprise to other nations, had they known) first kiss.  First, at least, purposeful and meaningful and non-spiteful kiss.

Gradually, Francis's shoulders loosened and he leaned back gingerly into Arthur.  Arthur let him, knowing from long intimacy that Francis was still hurting in many ways and even the lightest touch in the wrong spot could cause pain.  "What I am trying to say is, _Angleterre_ ," and his breath was a sigh and a shudder all in one, "I am glad that... you are here.  With me.  Now."

His free hand reached back over his shoulder and Arthur took it, pressed his lips to it like a gentleman even though Francis was always telling him he was anything _but_.  "Bloody hell, is this a confession?" he asked, unable to help the teasing note in his voice as he leaned in to kiss Francis at the juncture of shoulder and neck.

" _Non_ ," Francis said and took one last breath of the cigarette.  "A simple truth."

As he took the cigarette from France's limp fingers and leaned over to extinguish it in the ashtray on the table at the side of the bed, Arthur wondered what the others would think of this.  Thought of this.  The enemies, especially, the ones that had _did_ this to Francis, the ones... he had to start treating as nations again, instead of faceless, evil warmongers.

But when he sighed, and pressed his face his face into the back of Francis's neck and kissed it and inhaled the smell of tobacco smoke and a hint of cloves and some underlying musk - Francis's scent, a comforting thing - he decided, let them think what they wanted.  He had this.  He didn't care.  At all.


End file.
